What does sadden me is how many young disabled people still feel that a happy love life is out of reach. I started using my wheelchair at the age of fifteen and at the time I was sure I would never find love.

I found the statistics really shocking, but mostly as they seem to be totally opposite to my own experience. I was born disabled, and became a wheelchair user at the age of fifteen, yet I can honestly say I have never had any trouble making friends, being invited to social situations or finding love.

It's not just the big chains and shopping centre that is easy. Through out the city centre there are arcades of boutique style shops and restaurants, and pretty much all of these are equally accessible. Most of these are historic in nature and yet there has been great effort taken to ensure as many of them are as accessible as possible.

Last weekend I paid a trip to the seaside, to Brighton to take part in a literary event called Sea Changers. What struck me from the moment I arrived was how hard it was to get around in my wheelchair.

Please before you pass judgement on anyone's quality of life, stop and think. Don't just claim "I couldn't cope", as I really think you could. Pain, like many other trials in life, can be beaten. It can be medically treated and psychologically mastered, with help, and so we need to have a sensible debate on quality of life before we go any further down a road that may be very hard to come back from.

It is perhaps natural to confuse real human worth with salaries, celebrity or power - it's not an uncommon mistake - what is really upsetting is to see this error turned into an ongoing policy which crushes disabled people or indeed any group that the powerful deem less worthy.

When was the last time you saw a disabled person on TV? Our research shows more than half of us are more likely to see a disabled person on the street rather than on our screens. And one in six of us have no recollection of disabled people in any media at all.

The portrayal of disabled people is a complex affair as the many different interest groups try to portray us as a collective for their own agendas, when in reality we are just a collection of individuals labelled by society because of our difficulties, when the reality is we have very little else in common.

We know that disabled people have the potential, drive and desire to be our country's future leaders or entrepreneurs if they are given the chance. We also know that our best companies value talent and we're delighted to be able to connect the two. And we welcome support from anyone - NUS, Prime Minister or BBC - with the common sense to make common cause with us.

The real betrayal of Britain's poorest and most vulnerable people was Labour's support for this toxic policy. With 13 honourable exceptions who all deserve praise for actually doing what they were elected to do, Labour MPs acquiescently lined up behind the welfare cap. If an antelope feeds its calf to a lion, that's pretty shocking.

Disabled people are no longer dependent on the charities, who could now be seen as the Black slave traders of our time. The services they run are now mostly funded by government and are undesirable relics of the past.

f I was paid what I was really worth, in relation to my peers as well as my expertise and experience, I would be on a six figure salary and living very comfortably indeed. But as an self-employed disability issues trouble shooter, prepared to tackle the issues no one else can, I have found it very difficult to be taken seriously, yet alone be paid.

On Thursday many disability activists across the country will be celebrating the fact that the 'Wow Petition', a government e-petition, will have reached the necessary 100,000 signatures to be debated in parliament... I have three main concerns to why I think this petition is a step backwards for disabled people and indeed the whole of society.

For myself, having a voice and being able to communicate with others is not just a politically correct good thing but it is an important key and starting point to providing people with the ability to self-determined their lives, taking advantage of their rights, as well as their responsibilities.

I am not sure why a bunch of unelected and often unaccountable people who simply share a political and socially constructed label with me should have the right to dictate and control aspects of my life in terms of being my voice in national and local government policy.

I can either resent what I need or embrace them with a pride for understanding who I am. Why should I compromise what is useful to me because society is uncomfortable that the image the equipment I need offers, or that many professionals may be worried about the illusion of infantilism...

Technology, it is often yet accurately said, sets you free. Nowhere is this more true than it is for disabled people, like myself. You often do not think about it: like so many other things in our day to day lives, it just fades into the background. Yet without technology, I simply couldn't be myself.

For many disabled people working in the field as consultants and activists including myself, the welfare reforms have dominated the agenda since 2010 pushing so many other issues, like grassroot sport and quality of wheelchair services, to the sidelines.

I would define a personal assistant as someone independent directly employed by a person who is capable of directing them and requires care and/or support tasks to be performed...The person has to be employed rather than self-employed, which has been a bone of contention between myself and the government who believes it does not matter how people are employed.